Chapter 3 #2
Connor tugs at her sleeve, breaking the trance between us. “Mom, can you take our picture now?”
“Uh…yeah, sorry. Of course, honey.” She lifts her phone with hands that aren’t quite steady and it takes everything in me not to jump up and cover them with mine to steady her the way I used to. I force myself to smile, resting a hand on Connor’s shoulder as Harper snaps a few pictures.
“Thanks, Coach!” Connor says. “You’re, like, my favorite player ever.”
I laugh softly. “Thanks, kid. You’ve got good taste.”
“This is my mom. She’s a big fan of yours too just like me!” Connor grins and takes his mom’s hand, looking like the proudest kid in the room and leaving me face-to-face with the woman I once dreamed of spending the rest of my life with.
Up close, the years melt away and suddenly my throat tightens, my pulse hammering.
I can’t believe she’s fucking here.
Standing right in front of me.
“Hi…Mom—” I start, but the words die on my tongue.
“Hello,” she says, with a small, guarded smile. Her hand reaches out, my eyes following her movement, and she clears her throat. “I’m Harper. Connor’s mom.”
Oh, so she’s pretending not to know me.
That’s how she’s playing this?
She knows damn well who I am.
She knows everything about me.
I know she remembers.
She remembers the way I held her when she had a bad day and needed to cry.
She remembers the hours we spent watching every romcom known to man because she loved them.
She remembers the feel of my tongue on her skin…my cock pulsing inside her.
There’s no way in hell she doesn’t remember every fucking thing.
Because I remember it all.
But yeah, okay, fine. I’ll play this game.
For Connor.
I wrap my hand around hers and try not to outwardly react at the contact of her cool skin in my warm hand. “Harrison.”
Her lips part just a little, but she doesn’t respond. There’s something trembling beneath her calm. Nerves, maybe, or guilt. I don’t know.
“You’ve got a great kid here,” I tell her, shaking my hand over Connor’s hair playfully. “He reminds me a lot of myself when I was his—”
I pause.
It’s barely a beat, but I feel it like a goddamn punch to my gut.
Like a gunshot straight to my chest.
“His age…”
Wait…
“I’m ten,” Connor says, smiling proudly. “Were you playing hockey when you were ten?”
Ten.
Fuck.
The number hits like a sledgehammer to the ribs.
I swallow hard, my brain doing the math before I can stop it.
Ten.
That means…
He might be…
He could be…
Jesus Christ.
I don’t let my expression slip, not with a hundred cameras and kids milling around. But something in my chest caves in, all the air sucked right out of me. I force a smile, nodding like it’s casual conversation.
“Yeah, bud. That’s when I started playing. Got my first pair of skates when I was ten.”
Harper knows this. I know she knows this because I told her a long time ago. She knows everything about my past.
Connor smiles and offers me a high five. “Awesome!”
We stand together for an awkward few seconds, ten years of silence pressing down on us, too heavy for words.
I don’t know what to do, where to go from here.
I can’t believe this is happening. My eyes shift from Harper to Connor and then back to Harper, silently asking the question I know she knows I want to ask.
She has to know I’m definitely wondering.
I can see the flicker of panic in her eyes.
“Connor really looks up to you,” she says finally, voice soft, carefully measured. “He talks about you nonstop.”
How long has she been in California?
In Anaheim?
What is she doing here?
Did she move here?
Is she here for work?
What does she even do now?
How do I not know any of this?
“Smart kid,” I say, but the humor doesn’t land. My throat’s too tight and there are more emotions crashing through my mind than I can process at the moment. “Look, Harper, I—”
She cuts me off with a quick shake of her head. “Well, we should probably let Harrison meet the other families waiting, right Connor?”
Wait, they’re leaving?
Fuck.
Of course they are.
This isn’t the time or place to ask a woman I haven’t spoken to in ten years if the kid holding her hand is my son.
We can’t have any kind of worthwhile conversation here. So, I nod slowly and remind myself to unclench my jaw. “Yeah. I should—” I hitch my thumb back over my shoulder.
“Right.” She gives me a small, polite smile that doesn’t reach her eyes and turns to Connor. “You ready?”
“Yeah let’s go meet Barrett Cunningham so I can remind him how he couldn’t catch me on the ice!” He waves as he pulls his mother in the opposite direction from me. “Bye Harrison. See you on Monday.”
“See ya, Connor.” I watch them walk away, the ten-year-old boy who, now that the idea has been planted in my mind, looks a whole lot like me, and the woman who once held my entire heart.
When they’re gone from view I immediately excuse myself from the meet and greet, apologizing to the remaining families and saying a quick hello before booking it to the elevator so I can get downstairs to the safety of the locker room.
My chest hollows and I’m finding it very hard to breathe.
I’m hot as fuck and my body breaks out into a sweat as I push through the locker room door, tearing off my clothes and pads one piece at a time until I’ve left a trail to the showers.
I turn the nozzle to hot and step inside and that’s when I sink to the floor and dry heave.
My son.
Jesus Christ, he might be my fucking son.
I’ve literally spent time with him in this arena.
The sound that rips out of me is somewhere between a groan and a choke, echoing off the tile. I brace my forearms against the wall and hang my head, the spray beating down on the back of my neck until my skin goes numb.
Ten years.
Ten goddamn years.
And she never told me.
How did I not fucking see it?
My chest tightens and I swear something cracks inside me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to pull air into my lungs, but every breath feels too heavy, too sharp.
The math won’t stop running through my head; when she broke things off, when Connor was born, how far along she might’ve been when I left, what I was doing while she was raising him.
While she was alone.
Was she alone all this time?
Was someone else helping her raise my son?
Is she with another man?
Is there a man raising my son who isn’t me?
My son?
Is he…?
A thousand moments flick through my mind like flashbacks from a life I barely remember. Her laugh, the way she used to wear my hoodies, how she’d wait outside the locker room after every college game. God, I used to think we were untouchable. I was going to marry that girl.
And now? She was standing three feet away from me with my kid calling her Mom.
I slam my palm against the wall, water splashing around me.
“Fuck!”
My voice bounces off the tiles, hoarse and raw as water pelts my shoulders. I drag both hands through my hair. The roar in my ears isn’t the shower anymore. It’s my heartbeat, my breathing, the unexpected pain tearing through my chest.
I missed everything.
His first steps.
His first words.
His first time on the ice.
Christ, I didn’t even know he existed.
How could I have missed this?
How could she have let this happen?
Why would she keep him from me?
All this time…
I don’t know how long I sit here, just letting the water run over me, my throat tight and my head spinning. I only realize I’m not alone when I hear the door creak open and a familiar voice break through the steam.
“Jesus, Meers, are you trying to drown yourself in there?”
It’s Griffin, of course.
I don’t answer. Not right away. I just lean my head against the tile, eyes closed, trying to keep myself from falling apart.
“Dude.” His footsteps echo closer, his voice dropping from a joking tone to a cautious one. “Hey. You good?”
The curtain rustles, and a moment later, his face comes into view, his usual ornery grin fading fast when he takes one look at me.
“Fuck, Meers,” he mutters, stepping back. “You look like shit.”
“Feels about right,” I rasp.
He tosses me a towel like I might combust if he touches me. “Wanna tell me what the hell happened? You get benched? Fight with Coach?”
I shake my head, water dripping down my jaw. “No. Worse.”
Griff crosses his arms, studying me, and then he’s joined by Ledger and Barrett.
“Worse than the time Barrett’s cat puked in your shoes?” Ledger offers.
I don’t even have to respond. The flat sickening expression on my face is enough that he stops smiling.
“What happened?”
I drag the towel over my face and sink to the bench just outside the shower, elbows on my knees. My voice barely comes out. “She’s here.”
Barrett frowns. “Who’s—”
“Harper.”
Recognition flashes across his face, followed by a low whistle. “Holy shit.”
“Wait.” Ledger frowns. “You mean Harper, Harper? As in your Harper?”
Griffin adds, “Harper as in the woman you’ve been hung up on for—”
“Yeah.”
He lets out a slow breath, sitting down on the bench across from me. “That explains the ghost look. How long’s it been?”
“Ten fucking years.”
“Damn.” Ledger cocks his head, his eyes narrowing. “And she just shows up? Out of nowhere?”
“Yep.”
“Lucky you, then, huh?” Barrett suggests but my look has him changing his tune. “Then again…maybe not. I take it you two ended on bad terms?”
I shake my head. “No. Yes.” I rake my hand through my wet hair.
“It fucking sucked if I’m being honest. I loved her.
I wanted to marry her. I wanted her to follow me wherever hockey took me, but she didn’t want that life.
Said she didn’t want to slow me down and I didn’t understand what she meant at the time. And now…”
“Now what?” Griffin asks.
I take a deep breath and swallow back the urge to dry heave all over again. “She didn’t show up alone.”
Barrett hums. “She’s married now?”
“No, worse.”
Griffin raises a brow. “Okay spill the tea. What could be worse than the love of your life being married to someone else?”
I stare at the floor. “She could be the mother of Connor Richardson.”
“Connor Richardson?” Ledger repeats. “Oh, that kid from the youth league?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.” He nods in understanding. “You know, it’s funny, I always kind of thought that kid looked like…” That gets him. His brows lift, and I can see the gears turning. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” I wipe my hand down my face. “He’s ten. Connor is ten.”
Silence falls heavily between us. For a long beat, the only sound is the shower still running behind me.
“Fuck,” Griffin says finally, his voice soft. “And you think he’s—”
“I don’t know,” I cut him off, because saying it out loud makes it too real. “I don’t know. But he’s got my eyes. My goddamn grin. He looks like me at that age. Fucking spitting image if I think about it.”
Griffin doesn’t crack a joke this time. He just nods slowly, his usual easygoing demeanor replaced with something quiet and sincere.
“Man…” He exhales hard. “That’s—shit, that’s a lot.”
I laugh, but it’s humorless. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“What’re you gonna do?”
The question hangs there, burning a hole in my chest. What am I gonna do? March up to her and demand answers? Ask a ten-year-old if I’m his father? How the hell do you even start a conversation like that?
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I can’t—” My voice cracks, and I force out the words, “I can’t even think straight right now.”
Griff crouches in front of me, resting his elbows on his knees. “You don’t have to figure it out tonight. Just…breathe, okay? Shower. Eat something. Don’t spiral before you know the truth.”
“Hey,” August says as he, Bodhi, and Oliver find us in the shower stall. “What’s going on?” He takes one glimpse at me and his brows furrow. “Whoa, Meers, you okay?”
“Harrison’s old flame is in town and it turns out she has a kid.”
“Okay…” Oliver says as if he knows there must be more to the story.
“A ten-year-old kid. Connor Richardson.”
“Whoa. The kids from Pucks & Blades?” Bodhi asks. “That little shit’s a rockstar!”
Barrett crosses arms. “And why do you suppose a ten-year-old kid, who is exactly the same age as the timespan between when Harrison and Harper broke up, is great at hockey?”
Bodhi’s jaw drops. “Oh shit.”
“Dude, you have a kid?” August inquires. “Did you not know?”
“How the fuck would I know?” I say, my voice raised. “She hasn’t spoken to me in ten years until today.”
“Sooo maybe if she’s in town…” Oliver bobs his head. “Maybe it’s not all bad?”
I meet his eyes, and for the first time since the meet and greet, a flicker of hope, though fragile and terrifying, stirs in my chest.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Maybe.”
“Now that I think about it,” Bodhi says, scratching his head, his eyes narrowed, “I’m pretty sure Connor’s the kid I met outside the hospital a year or so ago when I was with Corrigan.”
I scowl. “What?”
“Yeah.” He nods recounting the memory. “It was that day we all were helping Layken upstairs in the pediatric wing, remember? Playing a little light hockey in the family room with a few patients?”
Hmm. I have a vague memory of that day.
“I walked Corrigan back downstairs and as she was seeing me off outside the E.R., Connor and the woman I assume was his mom were coming out in a wheelchair.” He shrugs. “He had messed up his shoulder if I recall correctly.”
A year ago?
They’ve been here for a year?
Have they been here this whole damn time?
Right under my nose?
Did she come here for me?
Does she want me to be in Connor’s life?
Because if Connor is mine, then Harper didn’t just break my heart.
She stole over ten years of my life I can’t ever get back. Ten years of being a deadbeat dad who didn’t give a rat’s ass about his son because I didn’t even know he existed.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive her for that.